View report page

- 74 -
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of
The Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea.
Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
During the year 1959, 400 samples of food and drugs were examined,
35 of which were taken formally and 365 informally.
Adverse comments were made against 14 samples and the incidence
of adulteration or incorrect labelling may be classified as follows:-
Milk
Other food
Number of
samples
examined.
200
200
Number of
samples
adulterated
1
13
A sample of milk submitted as a complaint, contained 9 per cent
of total solid matter and 0.14 per cent of free alkali calculated as
caustic soda. It therefore contained approximately 25 per cent of
detergent solution and 75 per cent of milk.
Two cut loaves were mouldy when purchased due to being sold when
they were no longer fresh. The hot summer no doubt made it difficult
for bakers selling cut loaves, but some of them could exercise greater
care than they would appear to have done. Some slices of white bread
contained pieces composed of gear oil mixed with very fine metal resulting
from oil dropped from the shafting employed in the bakery. Judging
by the large number of this type of complaint bakers should pay more
attention to the lay-out of their machinery.
Several currant bun loaves were examined during the year and found
to contain widely varying quantities of fruit or currants, one containing
only 4.8 per cent of fruit was reported as inferior. Some bakers were
co-operative when suggestions were made to them that the quantity of
fruit should be increased. Bun or currant loaves are not bought
regularly, but for special occasions only, and therefore are not subject
to the same critical inspection by the ordinary housewife as would be,
for example, an ordinary loaf, but she should be able to expect a
reasonable quantity of fruit in a bun loaf.
The manufacturers of a health drink, which appeared on the market
with a considerable flourish of publicity, endeavoured to create the
impression that it possessed medicinal properties, whilst evading the
restrictions of the Pharmacy and Medicines Act, 1941. As the result of
pressure from this and other local authorities they agreed to modify
their label and the claims they were making.
In the opinion of your analyst a soft drink, called a "Blackcurrant
Vitamin C Drink", is not an ordinary soft drink if it is sold
essentially as a Vitamin C rather than as an ordinary blackcurrant
beverage. One sample was very similar to the Blackcurrant Syrup of the